This disclosure relates to a semiconductor component with cell structure and a method for producing the same. The semiconductor component includes a semiconductor body including a first component electrode arranged on one of the surfaces of the semiconductor body, a second component electrode arranged on one of the surfaces of the semiconductor body, and a component control electrode arranged on one of the surfaces of the semiconductor body. In this case, active semiconductor element cells are arranged in an active cell array of the semiconductor body, the semiconductor element cells including a first cell electrode, a second cell electrode and a cell control electrode and also a drift path between the cell electrodes. At least the component control electrode is arranged on a partial region of the semiconductor body.
A semiconductor component of this type is also referred to as a transistor arrangement with a structure for electrical contact-connection. The transistor arrangement has for example a source terminal as first component electrode, for example a drain terminal as second component electrode and for example a gate terminal as component control electrode. The semiconductor body of a transistor arrangement of this type is formed by a semiconductor substrate with an active cell array. The transistor arrangement or a semiconductor component of this type also has a partial region.
One disadvantage of semiconductor components of this type is that in the partial region or in the region of the gate terminal, the transistor arrangement is not active and therefore does not contribute to the current flow in the switched-on state or to reducing the on resistance Ron. In particular, the source region is omitted in the partial region in order to ensure the required robustness of the transistor arrangement. This appears to be necessary since in the case of an n-channel transistor for example holes which arise at the body zone flow through the relatively high-resistance body zone and thus cause a voltage drop in the body zone, the voltage drop being all the greater, the longer the distance to the nearest body contact.
Consequently, if a source zone lies in the body zone, then the base of a parasitic npn bipolar transistor is thereby biased and the transistor arrangement can be switched on even in the case of small currents, which can generally lead to destruction of the transistor arrangement on account of the splitting of the avalanche effects.
Since, in the partial region, the monolayer metallization used in power transistors does not enable the body zones to be contact-connected with the aid of the source metallization, these regions which are connected to the source metallization must remain free of source zones. This is particularly applicable to semiconductor components with trench structures having a plurality of electrodes, for which the space requirement is very large since all the electrodes in the partial region have to be led upwards and connected. For this purpose, the electrodes situated at a deeper level have to be connected further outwards in the partial region than electrodes situated at a higher level especially as the electrode situated at a higher level must otherwise be interrupted for the connection of an electrode situated at a deeper level.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.